


Shut Up, You Love Me

by Amuly



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Sickfic, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann is most decidedly <i>not</i> interested in taking care of his sick husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shut Up, You Love Me

“I have never been this sick in my life.”

“Spring semester, first year of your second PhD. You caught mononucleosis from one of your undergrads.”

Newton smirked at the memory, before quickly remembering how miserable he was and rolling away from Hermann. He tugged the sheets on their narrow bunk up to his chin, shivering pathetically. Hermann sighed and maneuvered himself awkwardly around their small apartment to their linen closet, retrieving a felt blanket with cartoon Kaijus on it. He returned to Newton's side and draped it over him. Newton shivered more dramatically and whined.

“Feel bad for me, Hermie-”

“Don't call me that.”

“- _everything_ hurts.”

“Don't expect any sympathy from me,” Hermann tutted. He moved to the end of the bed to tuck the two sets of blankets under the mattress, protecting Newton's feet from any chance of a draft. “This is your own fault for getting next to no sleep and stressing yourself over this new project.”

Newton whimpered and tilted his face back to Hermann's. His forehead was slick with sweat, his eyes glazed. Hermann wouldn't admit it, but even with fluids leaking from everywhere, Newton still managed to look like a fine specimen of a man. Ridiculously attractive with his flushed cheeks and shiny, if a little unfocused, eyes. Hermann grimaced and set to work leaning over Newton to tuck the sheets between the wall and the bed, securing him in on that side, too.

“Will you get me some soup?” Newton pleaded. “And Sprite?” he added after a moment licking at dry lips.

“I should tell you to get some yourself, since it's your fault,” Hermann groused.

Newton laid back against his pillow with a small whimper. “My muscles hurt.”

“That's because your body is producing anti-bodies to fight against infection, which in turn are producing histamines which are being absorbed into your muscles, causing them to contract.”

Newton's whole body twitched as he rolled over and tried to focus on Hermann's face. “You listen? To m'biology?”

Hermann's mouth did a strange thing where it tried to smile at Newton's confused, adorable, stupid face, but he refused to let it. So he ended up scowling far more fiercely than was really appropriate in his effort to suppress the smile.

“It's impossible to tune out ever inane fact you tell me about the softer sciences,” Hermann finally grunted. He carded a hand through Newton's hair, pushing the damp mess back from his forehead and feeling the heat radiating from his body. “Now sleep.”

“Thirsty.”

Hermann reached down and picked up one of the bottled waters he had sitting by their bedside. “Perhaps I should withhold water so it becomes too difficult to speak,” he mused as he cracked open the water and handed it over.

Delicately Newton sipped at it, bending his neck forward at an awkward angle to avoid levering his body more completely upright. “Thank you,” he murmured.

Hermann grumbled and pushed himself upright. “ _Sleep_ ,” he ordered. “I've got work to do.”

It was very possible Newton was asleep before he even left the room. Hermann spared a glance only to make sure Newton wasn't going to spill the water bottle all over their bed before shutting the door carefully behind him.

Tendo slid into the cafeteria line behind him when Hermann picked up a tray.

“Where's Newt-Man?” Tendo asked as the two slid down the line, selecting their foods from the cafeteria buffet.

“Bedridden,” Hermann groused.

“Aw, he caught that flu that's going around?”

Hermann nodded curtly as he picked up two bowls of some kind of hot soup. He then bypassed the rest of the food for the imitation ice cream desserts as the end of the line. Tendo caught up as he was checking out.

“Playing nursemaid?” he asked.

Hermann snatched his PPDC card back from the cashier and sniffed at Tendo. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Tendo's laugh followed him out of the cafeteria and down the residential halls of the Shatterdome.

Once Hermann managed to awkwardly push his way back into his and Newton's shared quarters, he found Newton curled around a box of Kleenex and blinking pitifully at him through glassy eyes.

“Did you bring me soup?” he mewled. He tried to sniff then, ostensibly to catch a whiff of what Hermann was carrying on the tray, but it turned into a mucus-filled snort, which was followed by blowing his nose into a Kleenex. A pile of crumpled ones littered the ground around the bed, encircling the wastepaper bin Hermann had placed there.

“Honestly, Newton,” he grumbled as he set the tray down at the foot of the bed. “You're not too sick to clean up after yourself.” Hermann's muscles twitched and rebelled as he painstakingly lowered himself to his knees to pick up the tissues and drop them in the wastepaper bin.

Newton mumbled something that sounded vaguely affectionate and patted Hermann's head lovingly, if not uncoordinatedly. Hermann grumbled and pushed himself upright, the last of the tissues thrown away.

“You get dinner?” Newton croaked.

“I got myself dinner,” Hermann corrected as he helped Newton sit up in bed, positioning the pillows just-so behind his back. Then he limped over to the tray and set it down on Newton's lap. Hermann sat down in the chair next to the bed and resolutely dug into his soup. It wasn't what he would have picked for himself that evening, but it was passable.

Apparently it was heaven for Newton, who whimpered in a pleased sort of way as he swallowed the broth. He gestured at his throat and nodded. “'s good.”

Hermann forced down another spoonful for himself before peering distastefully down at his half-empty bowl. “It's pig swallow,” he complained.

Newton polished his off with a happy sigh. Wordlessly Hermann pushed his bowl over to Newton and made sure he ate all of it before they both dug into the ice cream.

“I almost feel like I can talk again,” Newton sighed. He licked happily at his spoon. Hermann pushed aside his more erotic thoughts—they certainly wouldn't be indulging in anything of that nature for the next several nights.

“I've made a terrible mistake,” Hermann grumbled. He then passed the last half of his ice cream off to Newton when he noticed Newton pushing aside his empty bowl.

Newton laid back against his pillows with a sigh when he was done with all the food, patting his belly happily. Hermann managed to removed the tray and set it on their one small table they could fit in the apartment without having to move from his seat.

“I already feel better,” Newton proclaimed. He sounded a little better: his voice was less raspy and pained, though that most likely had more to do with the numbing properties of the broth and ice cream than it did any actual recovery. Hermann ignored him and set about changing into his bedclothes for the evening.

As soon as he was in bed Newton covered Hermann's body with his own like a limpet. Hermann grumbled and rolled away from him. “You're too hot,” he complained.

Newton just hummed happily and tugged Hermann back against his stomach. “I'm chilled,” Newton explained. He tugged again at Hermann. Though he would deny it if asked, Hermann allowed himself to be moved. Entirely because he knew he didn't have a choice in the matter.

Newton's snoring that night was atrocious. By one am Hermann had half a mind to storm off to their lab and curl up on the futon they had in there for late night research that turned into all-nighters. But then Newton shivered against him, cold sweat soaking their bedsheets, and Hermann just sighed and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, as if that would block out the sound. The sacrifices he made for Newton, honestly.

* * *

The next day found Newton even worse off, if such a thing were possible. Hermann woke him as gently as he could, shaking his shoulder until Newton peered miserably up at him.

Newton's mouth opened and a small sound escaped before he clamped it back shut, looking horribly pained.

Hermann held a glass of orange juice out to him. He helped Newton sit up and waited for him to accept the glass before he started talking.

“It's from concentrate, of course,” he explained. “Even that much was almost impossible to come by. We owe Tendo five separate babysitting evenings with his horrid child.”

Newton managed a weak smile around the orange juice he was chugging like a stein of beer. Newton _liked_ Tendo's screaming brat of a boy. Which was for the best, since Hermann was going to make sure Newton took over most the babysitting work when Tendo called in the favors. After all, it was only fair: the orange juice was for _him_ , not Hermann.

Hermann settled himself on the side of the bed and watched Newton pause in his drinking to breathe heavily through his mouth. Groping around for a moment, Hermann found the box of Kleenex where they had been knocked to the floor. He passed them off to Newton with the admonishment: “It's absolutely disgusting how much mucus you've managed to produce. I don't think I'll ever be able to kiss that mouth again.”

After blowing his nose and actually depositing the tissue in the wastepaper bin, for once, Newton smiled and leaned himself forward. “Liar,” he croaked out. He turned his cheek to Hermann and waited patiently.

Hermann planted a kiss to his cheek. It was clammy and too-hot, still. Hermann frowned and ran his hand through Newton's hair when he pulled back, feeling at his forehead.

“The vitamin C won't do you any good at this point,” Hermann complained. “But it will feel good on your throat, and is better for you than milk, which would just cause you to produce more mucus.”

After Newton finished his orange juice and Hermann set the empty glass aside, Newton slid back down in their bed and closed his eyes. Hermann fretted for a moment at his bedside, before he stood up. “Right, well, I have to go to the lab. The apocalypse doesn't take a break just because one scientist decides to be a layabout.”

When Newton whimpered sadly Hermann bent back down and swept his hair back from his forehead, pressing a kiss to the damp skin he revealed. “Be sure to sleep some more,” he reminded Newton. “I'll be back at lunch. I suppose eating from home won't be too much of an inconvenience, just this once.”

“Love you,” Newton mumbled. He already seemed half-asleep.

“Indeed,” Hermann quipped back.

* * *

Two more days of this and Newton was finally on his feet again, bustling about with his usual whirlwind of motion and sound. Which were a great deal more bothersome than usual, because now Hermann was confined to their bed, running a fever of thirty-eight and feeling generally awful.

Newton brought him soup and ice cream for lunch and held the most remarkably extensive one-sided conversation Hermann had ever been unfortunate enough to witness.

Before Newton left for the lab and Hermann rolled over for some much-needed sleep, Newton paused and bent over the bed, wrapping Hermann up in an entirely unwelcome hug.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” Newton mumbled against Hermann's cheek. He kissed it as Hermann sniffed dejectedly. “I love you, man.”

Hermann managed a pitiful whine in return, which just got him another kiss on the corner of his mouth—unsanitary—before Newton swept off to go about his work. Hermann sighed and buried his face in his pillow.

The things he suffered for that man.


End file.
